Communication between healthcare providers and patients can be complex and confusing to both providers and patients. Providers have significant domain knowledge, but may not understand the particular questions and fears of the patient. Children in particular are often affected by anxiety, fear or a sense of self-reproach before undergoing a medical treatment or procedure. Language barriers can also cause difficulty in effective communication which can lead to stress and misunderstanding on the part of the provider and the patient. Common medical treatments or procedures often entails infusing a substance into or withdrawing a fluid from a patient's body, or connecting a tube from a medical device into a patient's body involving transfer of a fluid (gas, liquid, wastes, food, etc). These medical treatments may involve dressing of wounds, immobilizing fractures and so on. Helping these patients allay their anxiety and fear or correcting any self-reproach is a very important step.
Conventionally with respect to children, play therapists may use toys to explain the medical treatment or procedure to the children. Others engage the children with games. In one approach, U.S. Pat. No. 6,004,136, issued to Ehrenpreis, discloses a toy bear where connectors on the bear are hidden by furs. These connectors allow toy tubes, such as, intravenous or feeding tubes, to be removably attached to the connectors. These connectors also allow replica medical devices to be connected to the toy bear.
In another approach, US Publication No. 2009053971, by Man, discloses an interactive doll, where the doll is in a healthy mode after turning on a power switch. After elapse of a time, the doll changes into a sick mode. The doll interacts by emitting a laughing or crying sound, or turning the cheeks red or green.
While these approaches explain procedures in a non-threatening way, they are not realistic nor accurate in their representation of the procedures. Moreover, the choice of materials (fur, fabric) have a high germ retention rate, which can expose elderly or children patients to infection risk.
It can thus be seen that there exists a need to use a new device to psychologically prepare patients, and particularly young patients, for medical treatments or procedures which involve infusing a fluid into, extracting a fluid from, connecting a tube into the toy, dressing of wounds, etc.